January 2015

As President of Singapore Psychiatric Association, I was invited by the Philippines Psychiatric Association (PPA) to attend the 14th Congress of the ASEAN Federation for Psychiatry & Mental Health (AFPMH) in Cebu, Philippines from 13 to 15 November 2014. The AFPMH Congress is held every 2 yearly and was last held in Singapore in 2012.

This year the theme of the Congress is “SETTING GOLD STANDARDS of CARE in ASEAN PSYCHIATRY”. The keynote speaker was Professor Mohan Issac from University of Western Australia, Perth. There was also a 3-day pre-Congress course on Leadership and Professional Development of Young Psychiatrists conducted by Professor Norman Sartorius from Switzerland.

At the Congress, there was a section on research in ASEAN psychiatry and an update on the ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry. The Presidents (or their representatives) of ASEAN countries from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore also presented their country reports on the last day of the Congress. My country report focused on the recently launched community mental health services such as the Assessment and Shared Care Teams and Community Mental Health Intervention Team which aim to provide faster and much accessible services to the general public.

During the meeting, the PPA also announced that it has prepared a draft mental health bill to fortify efforts to address the growing mental problems in the country. The PPA is proposing that mental health be devolved to the local government units. This entails training of local health workers on how to handle psychiatric cases and the provision of free medicines for mental cases in the health centres. The emphasis is on the integration of mental health in general health care or the “mainstreaming” of mental health as well as the development of standards for acute psychiatric care in hospitals.

I must say the AFPMH Congress was an excellent and well organized meeting which not only allowed me to look at new perspectives in mental health issues, but also built new friendships that span beyond ASEAN countries. I also look forward to the 15th AFPMH Congress which is going to be held in Indonesia.

The Singapore Psychiatric Association kindly sponsored my nomination to receive a fellowship from the Hong Kong Royal College of Psychiatrists to attend the Dec 2014 WPA Regional Congress held in Hong Kong.

As the theme of the congress suggested, congress participants were exposed to both Western and Eastern perspectives of psychiatry in their country. We were privileged to hear from eminent speakers like Professor Dinesh Bhugra, the president of the WPA and the first non-white president of the British Royal College of Psychiatrists. He talked on many broad and reflective topics such as the globalization of mental health and its impact on the mental of individuals and how psychiatry would need to increase its cultural sensitivity to meet the demands of a flattening world.

This point was echoed by the Guest of Honour Dr Ko Weng-Man (Secretary for Food and Health) who emphasized the government’s policy of prevention, early identification and timely treatment and rehabilitation for its citizen in the context of a lifecourse approach towards mental health.

We then heard perspectives from China and Hong Kong about the impending silver tsunami of dementia. In Hong Kong Professor Linda Lam has been trialing Tai Chi as a culturally acceptable method of staving off dementia and Professor Yu Xin from Beijing described the need to tackle high nicotine, alcohol and salt intake among elderly Chinese who lived through 2 revolutions and an economic miracle that has left many of them behind.

The program also let the young psychiatrists interact with the senior psychiatrists and gain many insights on how to approach leadership in psychiatry. There was also ample time for social interaction with a gala dinner held at the famous Jumbo floating seafood restaurant!

It was a truly wonderful experience that the SPA has allowed me to participate in and for which I thankful for the opportunity.